Working 9 to 8.6

It was announced yesterday that the unemployment rate fell from 9% to 8.6%. But is this “job growth” as good as the numbers show? Not necessarily. Sure, you can attribute some of the hiring in November to retail jobs for the upcoming holiday season, but I don’t think there were that many jobs created just for the Christmas season, at least enough to impact the unemployment rate that significantly.

I read two analyses regarding the unemployment drop, which you can read here and here. Both analyses caution about reading too much into the lower unemployment rate; instead they paint a portrait that displays a less-than-significant impact for the unemployed, underemployed and discouraged.